asked on

How to read a date in a specified format

I am using Turbo Pascal for DOS ver 7.0

I would like to read a date from user as DD/MMM/YY where DD is the Day and MMM is the first three characters of the month and YY is the year ie 98. As user enters DD I would like to move cursor after the '/' etc. Then I would like to I would like to display how many days since first of Jan that year. Ie. if user enters 12/Feb/98 I would display 43 days of yaer 98 so far.

I wonder if this is possible in Pascal ( I am do VB programming and have some Pascal background). Really I am after some code that can actually do rhis without using assembler

Please if posting code add comments. You can send code to hshhussein@mcmail.com or post it here

Thank you all

scrapdog

Not only is this possible, it shouldn't be too difficult. However, you won't be able to do it using readln. Your best bet would be to use readkey, the manual echo the key pressed to the screen. You can use gotoxy to position the cursor at the point on the screen where the character goes. Once a key is pressed, increment the position, and if there is a / in that position, juts increment two positions. Check your help file on gotoxy and readkey (they are both in the crt unit I think).

To get the julian date, you will first have to determine if the current year is a leap year. Do this by taking the year mod 4. If it is 0, (with the possible exception of the year being 00), it is a leap year.

Make an array (constant) containing the julian date of the begin of each month (i.e. month 1 = 1, month 2 = 32, month 3 = 50, month 4 = 81, etc.). If you call this array montharray, you could calculate the day of the year using this formula

day := montharray[monthnum]+dayofmonth;
if leapyear and monthnum>2 then day := day + 1;

xasan

ASKER

ScrapDog

Thank you very much for the idea and I will attempt it. However, I do not think I will be able to do it. My Pascal is very basic. If you could give me code to do what you said I would be so grateful. Or at least how to read the date date from the user using ReadKey and also validating it

Thanks again - I know I am asking too much, but that is how desperate I am.

Thanks once more

scrapdog

Damn, I just wrote a program that would do exactly what you wanted. But my computer crashed, and I forgot to save the damn thing!!!

I will rewrite it but I am not in the mood right now. I will get back to you later.

xasan

ASKER

Sorry ScrapDog but I have to let others answer it because I need it urgently.

It is still open to you so please try again

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

scrapdog

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

scrapdog

Are you there?

bobbyo

This is a small routine that I have used in the passed have a look.

Uses Crt;

Var

Date : String;
Mask : String;

Procedure ReadString(X,Y : Byte;Var S : String; MaxLength : Byte);
Var
Ch : Char;
TmpString : String;
WasSlash : Boolean;
Begin
TmpString := '';
GotoXY(X,Y);
Repeat
Repeat
Ch := UpCase(Readkey);
Until (Ch In ['A'..'Z',#13,#8,'0'..'9']);
WasSlash := False;
If Ch = #8 Then
If TmpString[Length(TmpString)] = '/'
Then Delete(TmpString,Length(TmpString)-1,2)
Else Delete(TmpString,Length(TmpString),1);
Case Length(TmpString) Of
0..1 : If Ch In ['0'..'9'] Then
Begin
TmpString := TmpString + Ch;
End;
3..5 : If Ch In ['A'..'Z'] Then
Begin
TmpString := TmpString + Ch;
End;
6..8 : If Ch In ['0'..'9'] Then
Begin
TmpString := TmpString + Ch;
End;
End;
If Length(TmpString) = 2 Then TmpString := TmpString + '/';
If Length(TmpString) = 6 Then TmpString := TmpString + '/';
GotoXY(X,Y);
Write(' ');
GotoXY(X,Y);
Write(TmpString);
Until Ch = #13;
S := TmpString;
End;

Begin
ReadString(1,1,Date,9);
End.

xasan

ASKER

Scrapdog,

Sorry, Christmas shopping is taking all my time. Thanks for the answer, I learned a lot from it and I have actually modified a little to suit me.

xasan

ASKER

Bobbyo

Your routine is excellent and I am trying to incorporte it into my program. Thanks. You made it all look aesy!!